Decorating bargains!!

After I finished decorating (so I thought) and checking out my pictures of our house from last Christmas, I decided that everything was looking a little plain and I needed to step up my holiday flare. So, when I was at Michael's the other night picking up something for my sister's Christmas present, I came across some simple berry decor...and when I realized it was on sale for 70% off, I stocked up!! I actually probably need to go back, but we'll see. For now, I am very pleased that I decorated our house for under $10 (in addition to what we already had)!

Dressed up candles next to the fireplace

Holiday hall table

I got 6 of these lovely berry rings to go at the base of candles (which I love to decorate with), so it has spruced up my living room, hallway, and dining room! I love the neutral-colored ones in my living room, which I have done in a more metallic and natural color scheme than last year's red enhancements. They also had berry garland, which I bought in the neutral color as well. Tried this on my mantle, but that looked kind of like it was missing something (maybe would have been better had I spent the extra $2 to buy another strand), so I added it to my bowl of pine cones on the kitchen table for some sparkle and to soften that arrangement.

Cute Christmas wine bottle covers!!

So now I feel much more complete in my decorating...it's amazing what a few small additions can do to a room!! Now, to find a magnolia tree to get a few leaves from, and I'll be all done!

Mini tree on the porch...makes doing the dishes much more enjoyable looking at this!

Here's Jefferson after we started making up following his camera "snack"

All Decorated!!

We are finally finished with decorating for Christmas at the Chorey house (at least for now)! We have gone with a very minimalist decorating style, with the exception of our tree, which is kind of a hodgepodge of ornaments ranging from our childhood treasures to souvenirs from our recent excursions. A few of my favorites are the ones with our wedding pictures in them, an ornament my great-grandmother had given my grandmother, and our "Jefferson" ornament. It was lots of fun to go through them all and see which ones we wanted to go where (or nowhere at all, like a scary clown from Billy's childhood and a porcelain doll of mine that he thought would give him nightmares :)).

Besides the tree, we just added a few Christmas-y touches to the living room which include two cranberry-colored silk pillows (surprise from Billy...only $30 total at TJ Maxx! Love them!!), a candy dish that I filled with ornaments, a nativity scene, and a small gold Christmas tree. I also threw a few red ball ornaments into my seashell bowl to add a little holiday flare to that.

Replaced candy with ornaments...very helpful for staying away from the sweets!

Christmas look for the bookcase

Shiny red ornaments give some punch to my normally soothing, sea-colored decor here.

In the dining room and kitchen, I have simple, natural decor...red berries and pinecones. That's it. For our upcoming party, I need to add some magnolia leaves or red placemats, so I'll post pictures then because the dining room is currently my present wrapping station!




We did get stockings this year, courtesy of my mother-in-law, so those adorn the mantle in the basement (since that is our coziest room and actually has a functioning fireplace...Santa would get stuck in the closed-up other chimney). My treasured snow village is also there, replacing the Tiki Barber photo and some other UVa stuff. We also have a tree in the basement that actually stays up year-round since it's a palm tree (and because we were too lazy to take it down last year :)). Billy has decorated this tree with "man" ornaments...beer-themed, motorcycle, guitar, etc.

On the porch, we added a little Christmas touch by putting the mini-tree from my wedding shower there, along with a red berry wreath. So it looks cute and inviting...and is a nice sight from our kitchen window!

Jefferson's ready for Christmas...

...but a little tired of so many things being moved around!

(I think he actually thought we were packing up to move :))

Now, I've got to finish up my shopping, bake my gingerbread cookies, and get Christmas cards mailed out, and we'll be all set!

Getting Ready for Christmas

We have actually started getting ready for Christmas earlier than normal this year (although post-Thanksgiving decorating is probably late for some people). We've already gone through a quart of egg nog and a container of Edy's Egg Nog ice cream - yummy!!

I took down several boxes of decorations from the attic over the weekend, in the hopes of decorating the tree and house in the next few days. We got our very full tree on Saturday...next year, we need to keep in mind that trees always look smaller in the outdoors than they do in your living room. We're not quite like the Griswolds, but our tree definitely dominates the room. On the upside, we will have no problem at all finding a place for all of our ornaments (which are abundant, given the fact that we were married less than a month before Christmas and received tons of ornaments that we love!). We started watching Christmas Vacation, our favorite Christmas movie, on Saturday night but were lame and fell asleep at like 10.





In addition to my decorating, I have some baking plans this week with my new gingerbread cookie mix and cookie cutters (wonderful anniversary present from the husband :)), so I am super excited to use those and fill our house with wonderful aromas of Christmas.

+

=

I am hoping mine somewhat resemble these!

To study and keep at the forefront of our minds the true meaning of Christmas, we have been reading passages in the Bible each day that correspond with what we're learning in church during the season of Advent leading up to Christmas. This week, it's the last 7 chapters in Isaiah, and last week was the book of Ephesians. In the midst of rushing around trying to find gifts (usually last minute for us), getting frustrated about crowds and traffic, squeezing in as many holiday parties as possible, and having our houses looking perfect, it is far more important to embrace and longingly anticipate the coming of Christ and the celebration of his birth that is Christmas.

Projects

Neither of us work in particularly creative fields, so we like to get out our creative sides in projects around the house. Most people may not know it, but Billy is a very good painter and has great artistic ability. I also love doing creative projects, most of which have involved photography or furniture as of late.

Here is a little sampling of our most recent projects...



We bought this cooler from a great little store in Driver, Virginia called Rio Grande Traders. They have all kinds of eccletic decorative items and furniture, so we love any excuse to go there! The store owner actually makes these coolers by hand! We noticed some of these coolers painted with Corona designs, but we wanted ours to have good ole American Budweiser on the front. So, we stopped by Michaels on our way home for some paint supplies and Billy went to work on his masterpiece, which I think turned out quite nicely. Now we just need some warm weather and cold drinks to put this baby to use!


I love nice furniture, especially when it's a good deal. My generous aunt passed our dining room furniture along to Billy and me when she moved and wanted to change the look of her new house, so we lucked out big time! We love the furniture, but the chair cushions were a little dark for the cheery look of our dining room. I had some leftover fabric from these two cute chairs I had made cushions for (with the help of my very artistic mother-in-law), so I decided to give the chairs a little makeover. With a screwdriver, staple gun, pair of scissors, and a couple yards of fabric, I was able to recover 6 of our 8 dining chairs. The other two are still in the darker color, which goes better in our living room (their current home). Maybe it's a faux pas to not have all matching chairs, but how often do we have 8 people eating in our dining room??



Here's a view of the chairs in the completed dining room...

My first chair project was with the bamboo chair below, which my mom bought for $23 in C-ville. At the time, it was a glossy, 70s-esque chair complete with white pleather and lots of grime I had to scrub off. To get the chair to its present state, I started by ripping off the cushion, stripping the existing finish, cleaning the chair, and then staining it dark brown (all in my apartment, which probably wasn't the best move for ventilation purposes). Then, the chair was ready for a new cushion. I selected a fabric with a bit of an Asian look to it that compliments the bamboo chair very nicely. I had the seamstress who had done my wedding dress alterations make cushions for the seat and back of the chair, and it was as good as new!!

This is Jefferson's favorite chair in the house too!

House #2 (Part 2)

Here's a little continuation of the tour of our renovations, with the upper level and basement improvements...

Hallway

The hallway started out in yet another poorly-applied, outdated wallpaper but has some nice features like the antique bell chandelier, high ceiling, and pretty moulding.

For the walls, we went with the same color scheme as our living room - Light Khaki above the chair rail and Garden Urn below (both from Lowe's Seaside Retreat collection).

Master Bedroom

We love our large master bedroom, especially since it can fit my best furniture purchase (Lexington/Bob Timberlake entertainment armoire which I got for a complete steal!) with plenty of room to spare. This started out entirely blue...that means light blue walls, robins egg blue trim, and blue shag carpet. So we went with our favorite neutral color for this house - Light Khaki - for the walls with white trim. It also had some way outdated drapes, which we replaced with faux wood blinds. And the biggest change was for us to rip out the nasty carpet, which left untouched hardwood floors!

The room now has a peaceful feel with great light and simplicity. If we were going to be in it longer, I would probably replace the single closet door with double doors to make the space more accessible (the closet is basically the width of the wall, so I currently have to climb into it to reach some of my clothes). We also bought some nice-looking linen curtains from Wal-Mart (very comparable look to these for half the cost!) but still need to hang those.

Guest Room

Our guest room had the same finishes as the master bedroom, and we went with the same color scheme there as well, just to keep with the simple nature of our style. After a year and a half in the house, we have finished this room, much to Billy's relief, with the addition of pictures from our trip to Europe and finally putting the bed up on a frame.

Bath #1 - The Blue Lagoon

So apparently when our house was built, it was a big deal to have not only colored tile walls and flooring but also colored sinks, toilets, and tubs. We love having two baths in this house, but that also meant having two different colored (but equally bright) bathrooms. It was also in style to have coordinating wallpaper and window treatments (which we were fortunate to have in both baths and the kitchen). We're on a limited budget, so we opted not to gut the bathroom and instead embraced the color in each bathroom. We did strip the wallpaper and painted the walls Seashore (also from the Lowe's Seaside Retreat collection) and the trim white. We tossed the window treatment as well, replacing it with faux wood blinds. This is our beachy bathroom, so we have beach-themed art, a bamboo bath mat, and a woven basket for our towels.

We have something in our house that is rare in our area...a basement! We love this part of our house...it's the best insulated area of our house, has a full bath and a second kitchen, and has a fireplace that we use regularly as soon as there is a nip in the air. The "man room" or den didn't need a whole lot of work...just new window treatments. It has beautiful pine paneling and is the coziest room of the house (although I'm sure Billy wouldn't want that to be part of his "man room" description :)). We have recently finished the improvements on the rest of the basement...our last major work on our house.

Den a.k.a. Man Room

Before

After

(minus the slipcover on the sofa, which we have resorted to removing because of Jefferson's digging habits with our furniture)

Basement Kitchen/Laundry Room

It's great having a second kitchen, which Billy has deemed "his kitchen" since it's near the man room. To this day, I'm not sure he has ever cooked in our main kitchen unless he's helping me with something. This kitchen was in fine shape but just needed a little cosmetic work in the form of painting the cabinets white and the walls ??? It's now much more inviting and feels more lived-in. This kitchen doubles as our laundry room, which is a little strange, but we still love the extra cooking area as well as the generous cabinet space it offers (since many older homes also do not have pantries).

Bath #2 - The Green Monster

Before

After

Blue is both of our favorite color, so we're more ok having the blue bathroom as our primary one. I like green just fine too, but I'm not sure this deep sea green was ever meant to grace the interior of a home (and in such great quantity). We've made it work, though, by removing the outdated wallpaper and window treatment (this was the best - and probably only good - wallpaper job in the house...we ripped most of it off barehanded all in the excitement of seeing how easily it came off!). Billy selected Park Bench, a deep green color, for the walls. I was very skeptical of this color, as I always thought darker/richer colors close up a space and make it seem small. But I was wrong...it's a very nice compliment to the sea green walls, floor, sink, toilet, and tub. When we painted the trim white, everything came together! Now, we have a very man room appropriate bath and have made the most of both of our cosmetically challenged bathrooms!

Yard

We have made some decent improvements in the backyard, although our limited budget won't let us do everything we'd like (i.e., adding a patio and furniture in the backyard) for now. Last fall, my construction-savvy brother began constructing a fence in the back of our yard to give us a little more privacy from the neighbors. Almost a year later, we finally had the fence completed, helping us worry less about letting Jefferson out and also giving us a more defined space in our backyard. We've also cleaned up the beds, added some pavers at the top of the stairs (no more digging for Jefferson there!), and added a few plantings (favorite is the red hibiscus outside the garage). In the front yard, we've done some minor improvements, including removing a couple of sad looking boxwoods and an island in the middle of the yard, changing around the planting bed by the sidewalk, and adding planters to fill with seasonal flowers at the front of the house. It would look great to add shutters and replace the existing boxwoods with something else (I have a planting plan from a local nursery that would look great!), but for now, we're trying to limit costs since it won't be a long-term house for us, so the improvements we'll do in the near future will be to move the mailbox (strangely placed on the side of the front yard - see picture) and paint the front door.

House #2: Our Current Abode (Part 1)

When we walked into the house that we currently live in for the first time, I fell in love with it...yes, through all of the nick-nacks and poorly applied wallpaper and color-tiled bathrooms, I knew this was the house for us (at least for the time being).

Here's what it looked like when we first looked at it:

Living Room

Dining Room /Additional Living Room

Den in Basement (future "man room")

Detached Garage

Rear of House (notice the lovely burgundy awnings)

Here's a little before and after tour of the main level of our home...

Living Room

Things we didn't like: wall color, window treatments (this room was one of the best)

Things we liked: hardwood floors, antique mirror and brass andirons, marble fireplace with great details, crown, baseboard & chair rail moulding, high ceilings, size of room

We went with a neutral color scheme for this room (Lowe's Seaside Retreat Collection - Light Khaki above the chair rail, Garden Urn below..that was Billy's idea!!) and painted the trim and ceiling a crisp white. Hand-me-down hutch and chairs, garage sale sofas, and clearance coffee table.

With the natural seagrass rug, lots of candles, lovely Target pillows, and the sentimental touch of my great-grandmother's brass fireplace tools, this room is done!

Dining Room

This was probably the worst wallpaper job in the house...the worse the application, the tougher the removal. So, we had to get help from friends and eventually a professional to get this stuff down! The curtains that so nicely matched the wallpaper had to go too.

The previous owners did leave us with a very nice chandelier and antique brass switchplates throughout the house!

Again, I like colorful dining rooms (not so sure if Billy is too keen on them, but he did pick out this color - Aloe Essence from the Seaside Retreat collection at Lowes), and ours is a very happy yet soothing room. The chair in the far corner is a prized project of mine...my mom purchased the chair at a consignment shop in C-ville for $23, I removed the nasty mildewed cushions, sanded and stained the wood dark brown (instead of the yellowy original color), and had a seamstress make a new cushion in this Darjeeling - Sorbet fabric I love. All for under $100 was I able to make a chair similar to this one but with a little bolder fabric and back cushion as well. An easy and cheap do-it-yourself project, even less expensive if you know how to sew!

We were very fortunate to have received my aunt's old dining room set, complete with eight chairs, a table with two leaves, and a beautiful hutch all in a pretty cherry finish. Picked up the painting that matches the color scheme perfectly for a mere $50 on clearance at TJ Maxx to finish out the room!

Kitchen

Our kitchen had a very outdated, country look, with stained cabinets and our favorite...the classy metal-edged countertop. I do love the vintage appliances though!

This was another fine wallpaper specimen, again with matching curtains on the window and back door. A little easier to remove than the dining room but still no walk in the park.

After testing out the 4th color on our little "colors that work well together" paint card (Atlantic Gray), we decided not to go with it and instead went with Seaside Villa...a grayish blue color that turned out perfect for our kitchen. We also painted all of the cabinets white to brighten up the space and invested in a new countertop, which is Formica - Basalt Slate, a textured laminate top.

You may notice the large empty space between the two base cabinets above...the fridge that came with our house died right as we were moving in, so it went away with the wallpaper, curtains, and linoleum floor. Not such a bad thing, though, as it was off-white, clearly not going with our vintage stainless appliances and cosmetic updates in the kitchen. So, we held out for over a year, trying to find a vintage stainless fridge, but those are pretty expensive, so we settled for a petite stainless fridge that fits perfectly in the smaller-than-normal-fridge-sized alcove. We love the floors, which are basically fake hardwoods. Same price as vinyl square tiles, look like real wood floors, easy to install! And we love the color actually more than our real hardwoods throughout the rest of our house. Here they are with my "rooster rug", another favorite purchase of mine from TJ Maxx.

The eat-in portion of our kitchen, which is cute but probably needs a new light fixture...maybe a nice pendant or small chandelier for some soft overhead lighting.

Porch

Back porch with lots of potential once the awnings, nasty lace curtains, and fake wood-paneled walls go far far away (or are somehow remedied).

Stage one of the porch re-do: Add some furniture and decorate. We chose to do this prior to painting the walls because of the short timeframe within which we had to get in our house. So, we added a seagrass rug, iron tables and baker's rack, and Billy's great-grandmother's wicker furniture. Plus a cute antique table I found at a consignment shop and our "love ficus" (a plant Billy bought me in college which we named after the "love fern" from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days :)).

So that completes our first floor tour...more to come in Part 2 of this post.